


Tapestry of Red and Gold

by RebeccaStevenTaylor



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 18:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20314345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebeccaStevenTaylor/pseuds/RebeccaStevenTaylor
Summary: I'm not entirely sure what this is - just a glimpse into Crowley's mind, his thoughts about Aziraphale





	Tapestry of Red and Gold

Is he my punishment or my salvation?

It was such an appropriate temptation for me. Eat the apple. Ask questions. Why shouldn’t you? What’s wrong with knowledge? And Eve fell.

I turned to go, but something caught my eye – a thread of gold, fine and glittering, winding its way round the garden and up to the wall. I followed it through Eden. Imagine how disappointed I was to find it was just an angel.

_I gave it away_

Not just an angel. Something new. Someone new. He questioned and worried. All the other angels were so precise, so cold, so certain. They shone silver and ice. He was the only one with that gold shimmer in the air around him. I stood there, and smiled at him and he smiled back and the gold thread wound it’s way around my dried-up husk of a soul.

Somehow the thread stayed there. I stood watching Noah load the animals and felt the warmth again, behind me, and there he was. Watching, worrying, questioning. I couldn’t resist teasing him, a stroke of his neck to make him turn before I appeared before him. Adorable angel, I thought. My angel.

At Golgotha I saw a shadow in his gold. He hurt for the man on the cross, just as I did. We stood together, sharing our mourning and when we walked away, we walked together, and talked of him. It was peaceful, soothing, to talk to him, and I felt a few more golden threads slip into the red glow of my mind.

I hated Rome. I hated what I had done. I hated what Caligula had allowed himself to be tempted to do. I hated my evil soul, dark deep red, the red of all the blood that would spill because of what I had done that day. When I saw the gold of the angel, I wanted him to go away. I’m not worthy, can’t you see what I’ve done? Can’t you see what I am? I am a demon!

He stayed. He sat down and he stayed with me. He could have – he should have – walked away – but he stayed and smiled at me, nervously, and the golden threads held me tight and safe and I knew I would never be able to break them. I was bound to him, this soft, shimmering angel, and he would never let me go.

I did try to escape. I walked the four corners of the earth, I walked in wilderness and cities, I tempted and schemed and found all the dark dirty places. I walked and I walked until the golden thread stretched almost to breaking point – but it still held me. Then one day, I felt a twitch on the thread. He was in trouble. I ran back and saved him, for the very first time.

I shouted at him for being naïve and idiotic and he shouted back at me, which was a relief. I wanted to be angry at him.

But then he said thank you, and I was lost. No-one thanks a demon. They scream and swear and curse you, but no-one thanks you. I growled at him to stop it, because no-one would like it, but he smiled at me instead, and now I am lost. His gold is threaded through my red, a shimmering, glittering tapestry of hope and love and safety and trust. He smiles at me and my dead heart beats. He touches me, and the breath I don’t need catches in my throat. I am his.

And I hate it. It hurts. Being without him actually physically hurts, a heavy pain in my stomach. The world, this world I love, is flat and dry and dull. I just pass time, waiting until I have an excuse to see him again. Aziraphale. Need me. Want me. I’m not even asking you to love me, just call for me.

And then he does. Or there’s a tug on the thread, and he needs me. Or I come up with a good reason and I am finally beside his side and I am happy, in a way. I am where I should be. I feel at peace. And yet – and yet – there’s a line I can’t cross. I can’t reach out to him. I can’t pull him close. I can’t tell him _I love you I love you I love you_.

Heaven. Hell literally doesn’t give a damn what I do, as long as I file the paperwork. Heaven requires visits. He won’t actually tell me what goes on up there, but he won’t see me for weeks after he comes back. And when I do see him, finally, he’s tense and suspicious. I know what they’ve told him. Demons lie. Demons tempt. Demons can’t be trusted. Demons can’t love and you really shouldn’t love a demon. I have to coax him back to me with food and books and music, until the muscles where his wings are relax, and he smiles at me again.

See? Punishment. To be so close and so far.

But – salvation. Because I realised something. He wants me to tempt him away from Heaven. Not so far he’d fall – and I’d never put him through that screaming agony – but just enough. Heaven strips the joy from him, but I bring it back. He wants to drink with me, and smile at me, and talk to me and even do the odd little temptation for me. I can see the red of my soul start to tinge his gold – not tainting it, but highlighting it, making it richer, making him glow like a fire.

I can see him looking at me, sometimes. _Tempt me a little bit more_. He pulls on that golden thread far more than he needs to. He knows how to make me come running, and I am happy to come when called. Why not?

OoOoOoOo

Damn it, the apocalypse? Now?

We have to stop it. I have to make him want to stop it. I know the buttons to press. I have six thousand years of knowledge of my angel’s heart, and I know what to offer him. Music, books, food. The world.

Not me. Not yet. But eleven years of working together, of relying on each other, of needing each other must have an effect. I can’t go too fast now, there’s a time limit and no time to go slow. His threads of gold will weft their way through me, my red glow will seep into him. Whatever happens, by the end, we’ll be part of each other, one glorious tapestry of red and gold.


End file.
